OWINGS MILLS, MD — A wave of squatters illegally moving into homes inspired a Maryland bill to increase penalties for violators.
David Bran and his wife bought a home near Owings Mills with plans to renovate and sell it to supplement their retirements, WJZ reported Monday. Bran said he found squatters inside with a forged lease that falsely claimed they had rented the property. With what appeared to be a legal document, police said they couldn't kick the squatters out.
"I was stunned. I was floored. I watched my life investment literally flashing before my eyes," Bran told WJZ. "Because I'm thinking the money we borrowed, the time we put into it, and these people basically just stealing possessions of our house, of our retirement, of our life savings."
Del. Ryan Nawrocki (R-District 7A) introduced House Bill 202 to crack down on squatters using fake leases.
The proposal would increase the maximum fine from $1,000 to $5,000 and set penalties for recurring infractions. The bill also empowers sheriffs to remove offenders from the property.
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"We have a squatters problem in Maryland where people move into someone else's property and then you can't get them to leave. They often have fake documents that are more professional looking than a real lease causing them to be treated like tenants not squatters. This has to stop so I've introduced HB 202 to provide stiffer penalties and faster time frames for getting a squatter out. Can you believe some are against this bill?" Nawrocki said Tuesday on Facebook.
Baltimore County Council Member David Marks (R-District 5) testified in favor of Nawrocki's proposal.
"We have had similar situations in my district - such as when residents of Seven Courts and the Honeygo unity needed to evict residents improperly living in homes," Marks said Monday on Facebook.
Opponents worry that the bill would burden prosecutors with 450 new cases per year at a cost of $443,012 by fiscal year 2030, WJZ reported. The TV station said others argue that the bill would give too much power to sheriffs without court hearings, which sometimes reveal that the person living there is not the true culprit.
"I realized the person who rented me the house had never owned it and had scammed me out of a few thousand dollars," said opponent Jessica Leggett, according to WJZ, noting that "If HB202 would have passed, a sheriff would have kicked me out into the streets at that time, and I wouldn't have been able to get my belongings."
To learn more about the squatting debate, read WJZ's story.